CLEVELAND, Ohio — Twenty-two people were charged in a federal indictment that says members of a large drug trafficking ring sold fentanyl, heroin and other synthetic opioids through a shared cellphone to customers on Cleveland’s East Side and in the eastern suburbs.

Federal authorities say Joseph Gray Jr. led a group of drug traffickers that also dealt cocaine and crack cocaine on Cleveland’s East Side and the suburbs.

Keith Martin, resident agent in charge of the DEA’s Cleveland office, said at a news conference at Euclid City Hall Wednesday that members of the group went by the name the “Grovewood Boys,” named for Grovewood Avenue in the city’s North Collinwood neighborhood. Their base was a building on Holmes Avenue, where they packaged drugs and split up profits, U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman said.

The group often used cellphones registered in another person’s name or to fictitious names and used code names for the drugs, according to an indictment. They also used a shared cellphone with a number available to all the people to which the members sold, the indictment states.

“By passing the Customer Phone from co-conspirator to co-conspirator, the (drug trafficking organization) could operate at all hours, and customers could reliably obtain drugs from the (organization) at any time,” a grand jury indictment says, adding that Gray, 30, told customers the phone number would be answered 24 hours a day.

The defendants accepted cash for drugs, as well as labor, indirect purchases such as for gas and through digital payments through the “Cash” app and other digital payment services, according to prosecutors.

Many customers came from Lake County, Herdman said.

A grand jury handed up the 42-count indictment March 6. It was unsealed following the arrest of Gray and more than a dozen of his co-defendants. Martin said officers fanned out Wednesday to make arrests and execute 15 search warrants, where they seized weapons and drugs.

Martin said agents and police investigated the case, named “Operation Crazy Train,” for seven months. The indictment indicates that agents recorded phone calls.

Customers sometimes thought they were buying cocaine but was instead cocaine mixed with heroin and fentanyl, Martin said. The indictment says one customer in Wickliffe overdosed from the drugs sold by Gray’s group.

While Martin said defendants in the indictment traded guns for drugs, Herdman said there were no instances of violence outlined in the charges against the defendants.

Federal authorities, along with local police, have targeted drug dealers who sell heroin, fentanyl and other drugs as the number of drug overdose deaths skyrocketed in recent years. Cuyahoga County saw 560 drug overdose deaths in 2018. That is down from 727 in 2017, but is still significantly higher than the average number of overdose deaths the county saw in years preceding the opioid epidemic.